consider what we're thinking about, what we're talking about right now. obama, who won the election with an overwhelming electoral college mandate has put forward exactly what he campaigned on, which is sensible tax reform allowing the top 2% of the tax -- of rates to increase on the top 2% of tax earners and spending cuts. we've had a trillion in spending cuts already, $800 billion additional in the drawdown from the war efforts in afghanistan and iraq, and then a number of spending proposals that obama put on the table in august of '11. consider that against what republicans are doing, and this shows that republicans are really chicken hawks when it comes to reducing the debt. they have a plan on tax reduction which most economists think would do far more harm than the obama plan would. secondly, they fail to specify what kind of cuts they want. remember, this is the party that's campaigned for two election cycles now on cutting government spinding, but when you ask them to identify exactly what you want to cut, you get mishmash from them. you get $100